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In this acceptance speech, Herbert Hoover discusses the need to end
Prohibition.

August
11, 1932

Mr.
Chairman and my fellow citizens:

In accepting the great honor that you have brought to me, I desire to
speak so simply and so plainly that every man and woman in the United
States who may hear or read my words cannot misunderstand.

The
last 3 years have been a time of unparalleled economic calamity. They
have been years of greater suffering and hardship than any which have
come to the American people since the aftermath of the Civil War. As we
look back over these troubled years we realize that we have passed through
two different stages of dislocation and distress.

Before
the storm broke we were steadily gaining in prosperity. Our wounds from
the war were rapidly healing. Advances in science and invention had opened
vast vistas of new progress. Being prosperous, we became optimistic--all
of us. From optimism some of us went to overexpansion in anticipation
of the future, and from overexpansion to reckless speculation. In the
soil poisoned by speculation grew those ugly weeds of waste, exploitation,
and abuse of financial power. In this overproduction and speculative mania
we marched with the rest of the whole world. Then 3 years ago came retribution
by the inevitable worldwide slump in the consumption of goods, in prices,
and employment. At that juncture it was the normal penalty for a reckless
boom such as we have witnessed a score of times in our national history.
Through such depressions we have always passed safely after a relatively
short period of losses, of hardship, and of adjustment. We have adopted
policies in the Government which were fitting to the situation. Gradually
the country began to right itself. Eighteen months ago there was a solid
basis for hope that recovery was in sight.

Then,
there came to us a new calamity, a blow from abroad of such dangerous
character as to strike at the very safety of the Republic. The countries
of Europe proved unable to withstand the stress of the depression. The
memories of the world had ignored the fact that the insidious diseases
left by the Great War had not been cured. The skill and intelligence of
millions in Europe had been blotted out by battle, by disease, and by
starvation. Stupendous burdens of national debt had been built up. Poisoned
springs of political instability lay in the treaties which closed the
war. Fear and hates held armament to double those before the great conflict.
Governments were fallaciously seeking to build back by enlarged borrowing,
by subsidizing industry and employment from taxes that slowly sapped the
savings upon which industry and rejuvenated commerce must be built. Under
these strains the financial systems of foreign countries crashed one by
one.

New
blows with decreasing world consumption of goods and from failing financial
systems rained upon our people. We are a part of the world the disturbance
of whose remotest populations affects our financial system, our employment,
our markets, and the prices of our farm products. Thus beginning 18 months
ago, the worldwide storm grew rapidly to hurricane force and the greatest
economic emergency in all the history of the world. Unexpected, unforeseen,
violent shocks with every month brought new dangers and new emergencies
to our country. Fear and apprehension gripped the heart of our people
in every village and city.

If
we look back over the disasters of these 3 years, we find that three-quarter
of the population of the globe has suffered from the flames of revolution.
Many nations have been subject to constant change and vacillation of government.
Others have resorted to dictatorship or tyranny in desperate attempts
to preserve some kind of social order.

I
may pause for one short illustration of the character of one single destructive
force arising from these causes which we have been compelled to meet.
That was its effect upon our financial structure. Foreign countries, in
the face of their own failures, the failures of their neighbors, not believing
that we had either the courage or the ability or the strength to meet
this crisis, withdrew from the United States over $2,400 million, including
a billion of gold. Our own alarmed citizens withdrew over $1,600 million
of currency from our banks into hoarding. These actions, combined with
the fears that they generated, caused a shrinkage of credit available
for the conduct of industry and commerce by several times even these vast
sums. Its visible expression was the failures of banks and business, the
demoralization of security and real property values, of the commodity
prices, and of employment. And that was but one of the invading forces
of destruction that we have been compelled to meet in the last 18 months.

Two
courses were open to us. We might have done nothing. That would have been
utter ruin. Instead, we met the situation with proposals to private business
and to the Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and
counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. We put that
program in action.

Our
measures have repelled these attacks of fear and panic. We have maintained
the financial integrity of the Government. We have cooperated to restore
and stabilize the situation abroad. As a nation we have paid every dollar
demanded of us. We have used the credit of the Government to aid and protect
our institutions, both public and private. We have provided methods and
assurances that none suffer from hunger or cold amongst our people. We
have instituted measures to assist our farmers and our homeowners. We
have created vast agencies for employment. Above all, we have maintained
the sanctity of the principles upon which this Republic has grown great.

In
a large sense the test of the success of our program is simple. Our people,
while suffering great hardships, have been and will be cared for. In the
long view our institutions have been sustained intact and are now functioning
with increasing confidence for the future. As a nation we are undefeated
and unafraid. And again above all, government by the people has not been
defiled.

With
the humility of one who by necessity has stood in the midst of this storm
I can say with pride that the distinction for these accomplishments belongs
not to the Government or to any individual. It is due to the intrepid
soul of our people. It is to their character, their fortitude, their initiative,
and their courage that we owe these results. We of this generation did
not build this great Ship of State. But the policies that we have inaugurated
have protected and aided its navigation in this terrible storm. These
policies and programs have not been partisan. I gladly give tribute to
those members of the Democratic Party in the Congress whose patriotic
cooperation against factional and demagogic opposition has assisted in
a score of great undertakings. I likewise give credit to Democratic as
well as Republican leaders among our citizens for their cooperation and
their help.

A
record of these dangers and these policies of the last 3 years will be
set down in the books. Much of it is of interest only to history. Our
interest now is in the future. I dwell upon these policies and these programs
and problems only where they illustrate the questions of the day and our
course for the future. As a government and as a people we still have much
to do. We must continue the building of our measures of restoration. We
must profit by the lessons of this experience.

Before
I enter upon a discussion of these policies I wish to say something of
my conception of the relations of our Government to the people and the
responsibilities of both, particularly as applied to these times. The
spirit and the devising of this Government by the people was to sustain
a dual purpose--on the one hand to protect our people amongst nations
and in domestic emergencies by great national power, and on the other
to preserve individual liberty and freedom through local self-government.

The
function of the Federal Government in these times is to use its reserve
powers and its strength for the protection of citizens and local governments
by the support to our institutions against forces beyond their control.
It is not the function of the Government to relieve individuals of their
responsibilities to their neighbors, or to relieve private institutions
of their responsibilities to the public, or the local government to the
States, or the responsibilities of State governments to the Federal Government.
In giving that protection and that aid the Federal Government must insist
that all of them exert their responsibilities in full. It is vital that
the programs of the Government shall not compete with or replace any of
them but shall add to their initiative and to their strength. It is vital
that by the use of public revenues and public credit in emergencies that
the Nation shall be strengthened and not weakened.

And
in all these emergencies and crises, and in all our future policies, we
must also preserve the fundamental principles of our social and our economic
system. That system was rounded upon a conception of ordered freedom.
The test of that freedom is that there should be maintained an equality
of opportunity to every individual so that he may achieve for himself
the best to which his character, ability, and ambition entitle him. It
is only by the release of initiative, this insistence upon individual
responsibility, that we accrue the great sums of individual accomplishment
which carry this Nation forward. This is not an individualism which permits
men to run riot in selfishness or to override equality of opportunity
for others. It permits no violation of ordered liberty. In the race after
false gods of materialism men and groups have forgotten their country.
Equality of opportunity contains no conception of exploitation by any
selfish, ruthless, class-minded men or groups. They have no place in the
American system. As against these stand the guiding ideals and the concepts
of our Nation. I propose to maintain them.

The
solution of our many problems which arise from the shifting scene of national
life is not to be found in haphazard experimentation or by revolution.
It must be through organic development of our national life under these
ideals. It must secure that cooperative action which brings initiative
and strength outside of the Government. It does not follow, because our
difficulties are stupendous, because there are some souls timorous enough
to doubt the validity and effectiveness of our ideals and our system,
that we must turn to a State-controlled or State-directed social or economic
system in order to cure our troubles. That is not liberalism; that is
tyranny. It is the regimentation of men under autocratic bureaucracy with
all its extinction of liberty, of hope, and of opportunity. Of course,
no man of understanding says that our system works perfectly. It does
not for the human race is not yet perfect. Nevertheless, the movement
of true civilization is towards freedom rather than regimentation. And
that is our ideal.

Ofttimes
the tendency of democracy in the presence of national danger is to strike
blindly, to listen to demagogues and to slogans, all of which destroy
and do not save. We have refused to be stampeded into such courses. Ofttimes
democracy elsewhere in the world has been unable to move fast enough to
save itself in emergency. There have been disheartening delays and failures
in legislation and private action which -have added to the losses of our
people, yet this democracy of ours has proved its ability to act.

Our
emergency measures of the last 3 years form a definite strategy dominated
in the background by these American principles and ideals, forming a continuous
campaign waged against the forces of destruction on an ever-widening and
a constantly shifting front.

Thus
we have held that the Federal Government should in the presence of great
national danger use its powers to give leadership to the initiative, the
courage, and the fortitude of the people themselves, but that it must
insist upon individual, community, and State responsibility. That it should
furnish leadership to assure the coordination and unity of great existing
agencies, governmental and private, for economic and humanitarian action.
That where it becomes necessary to meet emergencies beyond the power of
these agencies by the creation of new governmental instrumentalities,
that they should be of such character as not to supplant or weaken, but
rather to supplement and strengthen, the initiative and enterprise of
our people. That they must, directly or indirectly, serve all of the people.
And above all, that they should be set up in such form that once the emergency
is past they can and must be demobilized and withdrawn, leaving our governmental,
economic, and social structure strong and whole.

We have not feared boldly to adopt unprecedented measures to meet unprecedented
violences of the storm. But, because we have kept ever before us these
eternal principles of our Nation, the American Government in its ideals
is the same as it was when the people gave the Presidency to my trust.
We shall keep it so. We have resolutely rejected the temptation, under
pressure of immediate events, to resort to those panaceas and short cuts
which, even if temporarily successful, would ultimately undermine and
weaken what has slowly been built and molded by experience and effort
throughout these 150 years.

It
was in accordance with these principles that at the first stage of the
depression I called upon the leaders of business and of labor and of agriculture
to meet with me and induced them, by their own initiative, to organize
against the panic with all its devastating destruction; to uphold wages
until the cost of living was adjusted; to spread existing employment through
shortened hours; and to advance construction work against future need.

It
was in pursuance of that same policy that I have each winter thereafter
assumed the leadership in mobilizing all of the voluntary and official
organizations throughout the country to prevent suffering from hunger
and cold, and to protect millions of families stricken by drought. And
when it became advisable to strengthen the States who could no longer
carry the full burden of relief to distress, it was in accordance with
these principles that we held that the Federal Government should do so
through loans to the States and thus maintain the fundamental responsibility
of the States themselves. We stopped the attempt to turn this effort to
the politics of selfish sectional demands, and we kept it based upon human
need.

It
was in accordance with these principles that, in aid to unemployment,
we expend some $600 millions in Federal construction of such public works
as can be justified as bringing early and definite returns. We have opposed
the distortion of these needed works into pork-barrel nonproductive works
which impoverish the Nation.

It
is in accord with these principles and these purposes that we have made
provision for $1,500 millions of loans to self-supporting works so that
we may increase employment in productive labor. We rejected projects of
wasteful nonproductive work allocated for purposes of attracting votes
instead of affording relief. Thereby, instead of wasteful drain upon the
taxpayer, we secured the return of their cost to Government agencies and
at the same time we increased the wealth of the Nation.

It
was in accordance with these principles that we have strengthened the
capital of the Federal land banks--that, on the one hand, confidence in
their securities should not be impaired, and that on the other, the farmers
indebted to them should not be unduly deprived of their homes. It was
in accordance with these purposes that the Farm Board by emergency loan
to farmers' cooperatives served to stem panics in agricultural prices
and saved hundreds of thousands of farmers and their creditors from bankruptcy.
It was in accord with these ideas that we have created agencies to prevent
bankruptcy and failure in their cooperative organizations; that we are
erecting new instrumentalities to give credit facilities for their livestock
growers and their orderly marketing of their farm products.

It
is in accordance with these principles that in the face of the looming
European crises we sought to change the trend of European economic degeneration
by our proposals of the German moratorium and the standstill agreements
on German private debts. We stemmed the tide of collapse in Germany and
the consequent ruin of its people. In furtherance of world stability we
have made proposals to reduce the cost of world armaments by $1 billion
a year.

It
was in accordance with these principles that I first secured the creation
by private initiative of the National Credit Association, whose efforts
prevented the failure of hundreds of banks, and the loss to countless
thousands of depositors who had loaned all of their savings to them.

It
was in accord with these ideas that as the storm grew in intensity we
created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation with a capital of 2 billions
more to uphold the credit structure of the Nation, and by thus raising
the shield of Government credit we prevented the wholesale failure of
banks, of insurance companies, of building and loan associations, of farm
mortgage associations, and of railroads in all of which the public interest
is paramount. This disaster has been averted through the saving of more
than 5,000 institutions and the knowledge that adequate assistance was
available to tide others over the stress. This has been done not to save
a few stockholders, but to save 25 millions of American families, every
one of whose very savings and employment might have been wiped out and
whose whole future would have been blighted had these institutions gone
down.

It
was in accordance with these principles that we expanded the functions
and the powers of the Federal Reserve banks that they might counteract
the stupendous shrinkage of credit due to fear and to hoarding and the
foreign withdrawal of our resources.

It
was in accordance with these principles that we are now in process of
establishing a new system of home loan banks so that through added strength
and through cooperation between the building and loan associations, the
savings banks and other institutes we may relax the pressures on forfeiture
of homes and procure the release of new resources for the construction
of more homes and the employment of more men.

It
was in accordance with these principles that we have insisted upon a reduction
of governmental expenses, for no country can squander itself to prosperity
on the ruins of its taxpayers. And it was in accordance with these purposes
that we have sought new revenues to equalize the diminishing income of
the Government in order that the power of the Federal Government to meet
the emergency should be impregnable.

It
was in accordance with these principles that we have joined in the development
of a world economic conference to bulwark the whole international fabric
of finance, of monetary values, and the expansion of world commerce.

It
was in accordance with these principles and these policies that I am today
organizing the private industrial and financial resources of the country
to cooperate effectively with the vast governmental instrumentalities
which we have in motion, so that through their united and coordinated
efforts we may move from defense to a powerful attack upon the depression
along the whole national front.

These
programs, unparalleled in the history of depressions of any country and
in any time, to care for distress, to provide employment, to aid agriculture,
to maintain the financial stability of the country, to safeguard the savings
of the people, to protect their homes, are not in the past tense--they
are in action. I shall propose such other measures, public and private,
as may be necessary from time to time to meet the changing situations
that may occur and to further speed our economic recovery. That recovery
may be slow, but we shall succeed.

And
come what may, I shall maintain through all these measures the sanctity
of the great principles under which the Republic over a period of 150
years has grown to be the greatest Nation of the Earth.

I
should like to digress a second for an observation on the last 3 years
which should exhilarate the faith of every American--and that is the profound
growth of the sense of social responsibility in our Nation which this
depression has demonstrated.

No
Government in Washington has hitherto considered that it held so broad
a responsibility for leadership in such times. Despite hardships, the
devotion of our men and women to those in distress is demonstrated by
the national averages of infant mortality, general mortality, and sickness,
which are less today than in times even of prosperity. For the first time
in the history of depressions, dividends and profits and the cost of living
have been reduced before wages have been sacrificed. We have been more
free from industrial conflict through strikes and lockouts and all forms
of social disorder than even in normal times. The Nation is building the
initiative of men and of women toward new fields of social cooperation
and new fields of endeavor.

So
much for the great national emergency and the principles of government
for which we stand and their application to the measures we have taken.

There
are national policies wider than the emergency, wider than the economic
horizon. They are set forth in our platform. Having had the responsibility
of this office, my views upon most of them are clearly and often set forth
in public record. I may, however, summarize some of them.

First:
I am squarely for a protective tariff. I am against the proposal of "a
competitive tariff for revenue" as advocated by our opponents. That
would place our farmers and our workers in competition with peasant and
sweated-labor products from abroad.

Second:
I am against their proposals to destroy the usefulness of the bipartisan
Tariff Commission, the establishment of whose effective powers we secured
during this administration just 25 years after it was first advocated
by President Theodore Roosevelt. That instrumentality enables us to correct
any injustice and to readjust the rates of duty to shifting economic change,
without constant tinkering and orgies of logrolling by Congress. If our
opponents will descend from the vague generalization to any particular
schedule, if it be higher than necessary to protect our people or insufficient
for their protection, it can be remedied by this bipartisan Commission
without a national election.

Third:
My views in opposition to the cancellation of the war debt are a matter
of detailed record in many public statements and in a recent message to
the Congress. They mark a continuity of that policy maintained by my predecessors.
I am hopeful of such drastic reduction of world armament as will save
the taxpayers in debtor countries a large part of the cost of their payments
to us. If for any particular annual payment we were offered some other
tangible form of compensation, such as the expansion of markets for American
agriculture and labor, and the restoration and maintenance of our prosperity,
then I am sure our citizens would consider such a proposal. But it is
a certainty that these debts must not be canceled or these burdens transferred
to the backs of the American people.

Fourth:
I insist upon an army and navy of a strength which guarantees that no
foreign soldier will land upon the American soil. That strength is relative
to other nations. I favor every arms reduction which preserves that relationship.

I
favor rigidly restricted immigration. I have by executive direction in
order to relieve us of added unemployment, already reduced the inward
movement to less than the outward movement. I shall adhere to that policy.

Sixth:
I have repeatedly recommended to the Congress a revision of railway transportation
laws, in order that we may create greater stability and greater assurance
of that vital service in our transportation. I shall Persist in it.

I
have repeatedly recommended the Federal regulation of interstate power.
I shall persist in that. I have opposed the Federal Government undertaking
the operation of the power business. I shall continue in that opposition.

I
have for years supported the conservation of national resources. I have
made frequent recommendations to the Congress in respect thereto, including
legislation to correct the waste and destruction of these resources through
the present interpretations of the antitrust laws. I shall continue to
urge such action.

This
depression has exposed many weaknesses in our economic system. There has
been exploitation and abuse of financial power. We will fearlessly and
unremittingly reform these abuses. I have recommended to the Congress
the reform of our banking laws. Unfortunately this legislation has not
yet been enacted. The American people must have protection from insecure
banking through a stronger banking system. They must be relieved from
conditions which permit the credit machinery of the country to be made
available without check for wholesale speculation in securities with ruinous
consequence to millions of our citizens and to our national economy. I
have recommended to Congress methods of emergency relief to the depositors
of closed banks. For 7 years I have repeatedly warned against private
loans abroad for nonproductive purposes. I shall persist in all those
matters.

I
have insisted upon a balanced budget as the foundation of all public and
private financial stability and of all public confidence. I shall insist
on the maintenance of that policy. Recent increases in revenues, while
temporary, should be again examined, and if they tend to sap the vitality
of industry, and thus retard employment, they should be revised.

The
first necessity of the Nation, the wealth and income of whose citizens
has been reduced, is to reduce the expenditures on government-national,
State, and local. It is in the relief of taxes from the backs of men through
which we liberate their powers. It is through lower expenditures that
we get lower taxes. This must be done. A considerable reduction in Federal
expenditures has been attained. If we except those extraordinary expenditures
imposed upon us by the depression, it will be found that the Federal Government
is operating some $200 million less annually today than 4 years ago. The
Congress rejected recommendations from the administration which would
have saved an additional $150 million this fiscal year. The opposition
leadership insisted, as the price of vital reconstruction legislation
and over the protest of our leaders, upon adding $300 million of costs
to the taxpayer through public works inadvisable at this time. I shall
repeat these proposals for economy. The opposition leadership in the House
of Representatives in the last 4 months secured the passage by that House
of $3 billion in raids upon the Public Treasury. They have been stopped,
and I shall continue to oppose such raids.

I
have repeatedly for 7 years urged the Congress either themselves to abolish
obsolete bureaus and commissions and to reorganize the whole Government
structure in the interest of economy, or to give someone the authority
to do it. I have succeeded partially in securing that authority, but I
regret that no great act under it can be effective until after the approval
of the next Congress.

With
the collapse of world prices and the depreciated currencies the farmer
was never so dependent upon his tariff protection for recovery as he is
at the present time. We shall hold to that as a national policy. We have
enacted many measures of emergency relief to agriculture. They are having
their effect. I shall keep them functioning until the strain is past.
The original purpose of the Farm Board was to strengthen the efforts of
the farmer to establish his own farmer-owned, farmer controlled marketing
agencies. It has greatly succeeded in this purpose, even in these times
of adversity. The departure of the Farm Board from its original purpose
by making loans to farmers' cooperatives to preserve prices from panic
served an emergency, but such an action in normal times is absolutely
destructive of the farmers' own interest.

We
still have vast problems to solve in agriculture. But no power on Earth
can restore prices except by restoration of the general recovery and by
restoration of markets. Every measure that we have taken looking to general
recovery is of benefit to the farmer. There is no relief to the farmer
by extending governmental bureaucracy to control his production and thus
to curtail his liberties, nor by subsidies that bring only more bureaucracy
and their ultimate collapse. And I shall continue to oppose
them.

The
most practicable relief to the farmer today aside from general economic
recovery is a definite program of readjustment and coordination of national,
State, and local taxation which will relieve real property, especially
the farms, from the unfair burdens of taxation which the current readjustment
in values have brought about. To that purpose I propose to devote myself.

I
have always favored the development of rivers and harbors and highways.
These improvements have been greatly expedited in the last 30 years. We
shall continue that work to completion. After 20 years of discussion between
the United States and our great neighbor to the north, I have signed a
treaty for the construction of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence seaway. That
treaty does not injure the Chicago to the Gulf waterway, the work upon
which, together with the whole Mississippi system, I have expedited, and
in which I am equally interested. We shall undertake this great seaway,
the greatest public improvement ever undertaken upon our continent, with
its consequent employment of men as quickly as that treaty can be ratified.

Our
views upon sound currency require no elucidation. They are indelibly a
part of Republican history and policies. We have affirmed them by preventing
the Democratic majority in the House from effecting wild schemes of uncontrolled
inflation in the last 4 months.

There
are many other important subjects set forth in the platform and in my
public statements in the past for which I will not take your time. There
are one or two others that do merit some emphasis.

The
leadership of the Federal Government is not to be confined to economic
and international questions. There are problems of the home and the education
of children and of citizenship. They are the most vital of all to the
future of the Nation. Except in the case of aids to States which I have
recommended for stimulation of the protection and health of children,
they are not matters of legislation. We have given leadership to the initiative
of our people for social advancement through this organization against
illiteracy, through the White House conferences on the protection and
health of children, through the national conferences on homeownership,
through the stimulation of social and recreational agencies. These are
the visible evidences of spiritual leadership in the Government. They
will be continued, and they will be constantly invigorated.

My
foreign policies have been devoted to strengthening the foundations of
world peace. We inaugurated the London Naval Treaty which reduced arms
and limited the ratios between the fleets of the three powers. We have
made concrete proposals at Geneva to reduce the armaments of the world
by one-third. It would save the taxpayers of the world a billion a year.
We could save ourselves 200 millions a year. It would reduce fear and
danger of war. We have expanded the arbitration of disputes. I have recommended
joining the World Court under proper reservations preserving our freedom
of action. Above all, we have given leadership in the transforming of
the Kellogg-Briand Pact from an inspiring outlawry of war to an organized
instrument for peaceful settlements backed by definite mobilized world
public opinion against aggression. We shall, under the spirit of that
pact, consult with other nations in time of emergency to promote world
peace. We shall enter into no agreements committing us to any future course
of action or which call for use of force in order to preserve peace.

I
have projected a new doctrine into international affairs--the doctrine
that we do not and never will recognize title to the possession of territory
gained in violation of the peace pacts which were signed with us. That
doctrine has been accepted by all the nations of the world on a recent
critical occasion, and within the last few days has been again accepted
by all the nations of the Western Hemisphere. That is public opinion made
tangible and effective.

The
world needs peace. It must have peace with justice. I shall continue to
strive unceasingly, with every power of mind and spirit, to explore every
possible path that leads towards a world in which right triumphs over
force, in which reason rules over passion, in which men and women may
rear their children not to be devoured by war but to pursue in safety
the nobler arts of peace.
I shall continue to build upon these designs.

Across
the path of the Nation's consideration of these vast problems of economic
and social order there has arisen a bitter controversy over the control
of the liquor traffic. I have always sympathized with the high purpose
of the 18th amendment, and I have used every power at my command to make
it effective over this entire country. I have hoped that it was the final
solution of the evils of the liquor traffic against which our people have
striven for generations. It has succeeded in great measure in those many
communities where the majority sentiment is favorable to it. But in other
and increasing numbers of communities there is a majority sentiment unfavorable
to it. Laws which are opposed by the majority sentiment create resentments
which undermine enforcement and in the end produce degeneration and crime.

Our
opponents pledge the members of their party to destroy every vestige of
constitutional and effective Federal control of the traffic. That means
that over large areas the return of the saloon system with its corruption,
its moral and social abuse which debauched the home, its deliberate interference
with the States endeavoring to find honest solution, its permeation of
political parties, its perversion of legislatures, which reached even
to the Capital of the Nation. The 18th amendment smashed that regime as
by a stroke of lightning. I cannot consent to the return of that system
again.

We
must recognize the difficulties which have developed in making the 18th
amendment effective and that grave abuses have grown up. In order to secure
the enforcement of the amendment under our dual form of government, the
constitutional provision called for concurrent action on one hand by the
State and local authorities and on the other by the Federal Government.
Its enforcement requires, therefore, independent but coincident action
of both agencies. An increasing number of States and municipalities are
proving themselves unwilling to engage in that enforcement. Due to these
forces there is in large sections increasing illegal traffic in liquor.
But worse than this there has been in those areas a spread of disrespect
not only for this law but for all laws, grave dangers of practical nullification
of the Constitution, an increase in subsidized crime and violence. I cannot
consent to a continuation of that regime.

I
refuse to accept either of these destinies, on the one hand to return
to the old saloon with its political and social corruption, or on the
other to endure the bootlegger and the speakeasy with their abuses and
crime. Either of them are intolerable, and they are not the only ways
out.

Now,
our objective must be a sane solution, not a blind leap back to old evils.
Moreover, a step backwards would result in a chaos of new evils not yet
experienced, because the local systems of prohibition and controls which
were developed over generations have been in a large degree abandoned
under this amendment.

The
Republican platform recommends submission of the question to the States
and that the people themselves may determine whether they desire a change,
but insists that this submission shall propose a constructive and not
a destructive change. It does not dictate to the conscience of any member
of the party.

The
first duty of the President of the United States is to enforce the laws
as they exist. That I shall continue to do to the best of my ability.
Any other course would be the abrogation of the very guarantees of liberty
itself.

Now,
the Constitution gives the President no power or authority with respect
to changes in the Constitution itself; nevertheless, my countrymen have
a right to know my conclusions upon this question. They are based upon
the broad facts that I have stated, upon my experience in this high office,
and upon my deep conviction that our purpose must be the elimination of
the evils of this traffic from this civilization by practical measures.

It
is my belief that in order to remedy present evils a change is necessary
by which we resummon a proper share of initiative and responsibility which
the very essence of our Government demands shall rest upon the States
and the local authorities. That change must avoid the return of the saloon.

It
is my conviction that the nature of this change, and one upon which all
reasonable people can find common ground, is that each State shall be
given the right to deal with the problem as it may determine, but subject
to the absolute guarantees in the Constitution of the United States to
protect each State from interference and invasion by its neighbors, and
that in no part of the United States shall there be a return of the saloon
system with its inevitable political and social corruption and its organized
interference with other States and other communities.

American
statesmanship is capable of working out such a solution and making it
effective.

My
fellow citizens, the discussion of great problems of economic life and
of government seem abstract and cold. But within their right solution
lies the happiness and the hope of a great people. Without such solution
all else is mere verbal sympathy.

Today
millions of our fellow countrymen are out of work. Prices of farmers'
products are below a living standard. Many millions more who are in business
or hold employment are haunted by fears for the future. No man with a
spark of humanity can sit in my place without suffering from the picture
of their anxieties and hardships before him day and night. They would
be more than human if they were not led to blame their condition upon
the government in power. I have understood their sufferings and have worked
to the limits of my strength to produce action that would be of help to
them.

Much
remains to be done to attain recovery. We have had a great and unparalleled
shock. The emergency measures now in action represent an unparalleled
use of national power to relieve distress, to provide employment, to serve
agriculture, to preserve the stability of the Government, and to maintain
the integrity of our institutions. Our policies prevent unemployment caused
by floods of imported goods and of laborers. Our policies preserve peace
in the world. They embrace cooperation with other nations in those fields
in which we can serve. With patience and perseverance these measures will
succeed.

Despite
the dislocation of economic life our great tools of production and distribution
are more efficient than ever before; our fabulous national resources,
our farms and homes and our skill are unimpaired. From the hard-won experience
of this depression we shall build stronger methods of prevention and stronger
methods of protection to our people from abuses that have become evident.
We shall march to a far greater accomplishment.

With
the united effort we can and will turn the tide towards the restoration
of business, of employment, and of agriculture. It does call for the utmost
devotion and the utmost wisdom. Every reserve of American courage and
vision must be called upon to sustain us and to plan wisely for the future.

Through
it all our first duty is to preserve unfettered that dominant American
spirit which has produced our enterprise and our individual character.
That is the bedrock of the past, and it is the sole guarantee of the future.
Not regimented mechanisms but free men are our goal. Herein is the fundamental
issue. A representative democracy, progressive and unafraid to meet its
problems, but meeting them upon the foundations of experience and not
upon the wave of emotion or the insensate demands of a radicalism which
grasps at every opportunity to exploit the sufferings of a people.

With
these courses we shall emerge from this great national strain with our
American system of life and government strengthened. Our people will be
free to reassert their energy and their enterprise in a society eager
to reward in full measure those whose industry serves its well-being.
Our youth will find the doors of equal opportunity still open.

The
problems of the next few years are not only economic. They are also moral
and spiritual. The present check to our material success must deeply stir
our national conscience upon the purposes of life itself. It must cause
us to revalue and reshape our drift from materialism to a higher note
of individual and national ideals.

Underlying
every purpose is the spiritual application of moral ideals which are the
fundamental basis of the happiness of a people. This is a land of homes
and of churches and schoolhouses dedicated to the sober and enduring satisfactions
of family life and the rearing of children in an atmosphere of ideals
and of religious faith. Only with those ideals and those high standards
can we hold society together, and only from them can government survive
and business prosper. They are the sole insurance to the safety of our
children and to the continuity of the Nation.

If
it shall appear that while I have had the honor of the Presidency that
I have contributed to the part required from this high office to bringing
the Republic through this dark night, and if in my administration we shall
see the break of dawn of the better day, I shall have done my part in
the world. No man can have a greater honor than that.

I
have but one desire: that is, to see my country again on the road to prosperity
which shall be more sane and lasting through the lessons of this experience,
to see the principles and ideals of the American people perpetuated.

I
rest the case of the Republican Party upon the intelligence and the just
discernment of the American people. Should my countrymen again place upon
me the responsibilities of this high office, I shall carry forward the
work of reconstruction. I shall hope long before another 4 years have
passed to see the world prosperous and at peace and every American home
again in the sunshine of genuine progress and of genuine prosperity. I
shall seek to maintain untarnished and unweakened those fundamental traditions
and principles upon which our Nation was rounded, upon which it has grown.
I shall invite and welcome the help of every man and woman in the preservation
of the United States for the happiness of its people. This is my pledge
to the Nation and my pledge to the Almighty God.

NOTE:
The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. to an audience of approximately 4,000
persons assembled in Constitution Hall. The address was carried over the
National Broadcasting Company and the Columbia Broadcasting System radio
networks.

In
his opening remarks the President referred to Everett Sanders, chairman
of the Republican National Committee. The above text is a transcript taken
from a sound recording of the address.